


The Directory

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Community: mcsheplets, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-03
Updated: 2011-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-18 22:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being separated from Earth meant making sacrifices, and pooling resources.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Directory

**Author's Note:**

> Written for mcsheplets prompt #96 Separated from Earth

In that first year, everyone had been prepared for the worst but hoped for the best. They knew it could be a one way trip into another galaxy but so many of them had been convinced that they would find dozens of ZPMs, all sitting in a row, just waiting for them. In the back of his mind, Rodney knew that might even still be the case because the city was the size of lower Manhattan and they'd barely begun to explore even the central tower. It seemed ludicrous that there wouldn't be a ZPM factory somewhere in the city, churning out the large crystals used to power the city, ships, and planetary shields among other things. It wasn't the loss of power that forced the Ancients to abandon the city ten thousand years earlier, it was living under siege for a century with no place else to go in this galaxy.

Why they didn't simply lift-off and head out was another mystery, but then Rodney wondered if they had truly believed it was just a temporary exile, meaning to come back one hell of a lot sooner. Ascension was most likely the reason why they never returned. Those who ascended gave up all interest in the affairs of the humans left to suffer under the Wraith, and those who didn't ascend simply lived out their lives and died, introducing their DNA into the gene pool of the second evolution of their kind--the Tau'ri, as the Goa'uld liked to call Earthers.

Being separated from Earth meant making sacrifices, and pooling resources.

Rodney was surprised it took three months before the first _hidden_ directory appeared on the server. HA! As if anyone could hide something from him. He allocated more space to the partition holding that directory as it began to fill with eBooks, music and video files, dipping in occasionally to see what was new, and even took the time out from his busy schedule to set up a decent front end and search facility. Of course, no one knew where that program had come from but he noticed that it was being used extensively.

He snorted when a new subdirectory appeared containing the entire works of Johnny Cash, figuring he knew exactly where those music and video files had come from--unless there were two people on Atlantis who were that far into the man's music. The increase of American Football games in the sports section was the clincher. Rodney had uploaded his own extensive library of music and video within days of spotting the directory because it was one thing he had no problems with sharing.

By now it was simply known as _The Directory_ in some misbegotten belief that giving it such a nondescript name would hide its existence from the city's leaders. After all, Rodney had always complained about the ever-increasing lack of long-term memory in the servers brought to Atlantis. Perhaps they feared that he would delete _The Directory_ if he knew about it.

Then the _Daedalus_ arrived.

With Earth no longer lost to them, Rodney thought _The Directory_ would go the way of the dinosaur but, instead, it became more popular than ever. New books, music and video meant allocating even more space and hard disks to that array. The person who had originally started the idea was killed at the Lagrange Point Orbital Weapons Platform just before the siege of Atlantis, but as no one knew who it was, that left Rodney to quietly step into the hole left behind by Peter's death. He did it as a tribute to Peter, without a fanfare, leaving the day-to-day running to others.

The news from Earth got progressively worse as the skirmishes with Lucian Alliance ships came closer and closer to Earth's solar system. For the first time, the _Daedalus_ arrived with immediate families--husbands, wives, and children of military and scientists alike--and returned to Earth with those who had no intention of ever returning to Atlantis. Not everyone could let go of their extended families.

The _Daedalus_ runs became more frequent, and each time it arrived full of anxious passengers and cargo, Rodney could see how much it was killing Caldwell to be carrying out this duty instead of staying back to protect Earth. For the first time, Rodney understood how it must have felt for the Ancients when the situation was reversed, and they were trying to get everything to Earth from Atlantis, ferrying their people through the mass of hive ships and Wraith cruisers waiting just above the besieged city.

Jeannie arrived with Kaleb and Madison, given space on the _Daedalus_ because she was already contracted to the SGC in a semi-consultant capacity. The fact that the SGC had called her in and given her the option to join her brother on Atlantis had shown Rodney exactly how bad the situation was on Earth. He knew it was only a matter of time.

When the _Daedalus_ failed to return to Atlantis, and the Stargate refused to lock onto the coordinates for Earth, Rodney knew that Earth had fallen to the Lucian Alliance. It seemed hard to believe that they could have defeated the Goa'uld and the Ori only to fall to the equivalent of Space Pirates but, once more, Atlantis was on her own, separated from Earth...and without the power to go to her rescue this time around.

 _The Directory_ started to run out of space again, filled with everything the soft science cultural people could send--the cultural history of the entire Tau'ri race. When the server crashed halfway through the day, completely wiping out the disk array containing all that information, Rodney saw even hardened military crying in the corridors. He went to work immediately with Jeannie's help and, five hours later, he strode into the main control area, ousted Chuck from his chair and put himself on the city-wide speaker.

"Your attention. _The Directory_ is back online."

Rodney had saved the city countless times over the years. He had put his life on the line many times more in the pursuit of knowledge to protect them from the Wraith and other dangers in Pegasus but this was the first time he saw open adoration for him in most every face he passed in the corridor on his way back to his quarters, desperate for a well-earned rest.

When the door slid open, he was surprised to see John sitting on his bed.

"How long have you known about...?" He waved a hand as if that explained everything but Rodney snorted softly.

"Two weeks after Peter Grodin set it up. You think I wouldn't notice something taking up that much space and with high access across the city?"

John's mouth twitched into a smile. "Radek said the disks were wiped. Whatever program Genescu set loose on it by mistake wiped out everything."

"I've been backing it up onto the Ancient database for years...just never found time to write an Ancient/Earth interface before today." He grimaced. "Low priority."

"You wrote the original interface."

"I'm sure those idiots who thought they were running _The Directory_ could have come up with something eventually."

"You wanted everyone to have full and easy access to everything in there."

John was grinning now and Rodney felt uncomfortable; he folded his hands across his chest in a defensive gesture.

"Despite my protestations against anthropology and the social sciences being _real_ science, I am as appreciative as anyone for the Arts. Admittedly, there are whole subdirectories I would delete given the choice but--"

"You do have the choice," John stated softly as he pushed up to his feet and moved towards Rodney.

Rodney looked away. Given the choice he would have deleted all of Johnny Cash because he hated the singer and his songs--and American Football too--but those things made John happy. He couldn't take that away from him, and for that reason alone, he couldn't take away any of it, aware that someone out in the city had thought each item a worthy addition to _The Directory_. Who was he to decide what should or should not be included based on his own likes and dislikes?

A hand on his cheek drew him back to face John, and he blinked in surprise when John leaned in and kissed him sweetly on the lips before wrapping his other arm around Rodney and drawing him against John's chest, holding him tight. When he pulled back, it was only far enough to initiate the kiss this time, and his own arms tightened around John.

Hours later, sprawled across his bed, tired and sated, Rodney watched as John booted up Rodney's favorite laptop and accessed _The Directory_. The low-volume strains of Johnny Cash was a little tinny on the laptop's external speakers, and although Rodney still hated it, he loved it too--for John.

END


End file.
